Boston Tech Watch: Wayfair Tumbles, Charles River Leaks & Chewy Begs

May 7, 2019

First quarter losses jolt Wayfair shareholders. Liberty Mutual teams up with MIT’s new AI research college. Charles River Labs reports its systems were hacked. Read on for more of this week’s Boston tech news.

— Losses were expected to continue at home goods e-commerce giant Wayfair (NYSE: W), but the sheer size of the red ink from the first quarter if the year caught investors off guard. Analysts predicted a loss of $1.60 per share for the quarter, but the company came in with a $2.20 a share hit. Wayfair stock—which closed the previous day at $163.48—plummeted 12 percent to a midday low of $143.84. Even as Wayfair’s resultsdisappointed investors, it did post an increase in sales to $1.94 billion for the first quarter, from $1.4 billion in the same period last year.

—Masabi, a digital ticketing technology provider for transit services, has raised a $20 million Series C funding round led by Smedvig Capital with MMC Ventures to expand its software, Justride, which is used in Boston’s MBTA system as well as transit operations in New York, The Hague, Denver, Los Angeles, Spain, Sydney, and Las Vegas. The company’s software has started to integrate scooter- and bike-share systems as well as ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft to let users plan and pay for travel routes using multiple modes of transit. The company says it is on track to top $1 billion in annual ticket sales this year.

—ZeroNorth, a risk management software company formerly known as Cybric, has raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by ClearSky Ventures and joined by Crosslink Capital, Rally Ventures and Petrillo Capital. ZeroNorth has earmarked the funds for research and development, sales, and marketing for its platform. The company last raised $6.3 million in a 2016 seed round and has taken in $18.6 million so far. Peter Kuper and Patrick Heim from ClearSky Ventures and Art Coviello from Rally Ventures are joining the company’s board. ZeroNorth also hired John Steven to be its chief technology officer. Steven most recently was a senior director at security testing firm Synopsis (NASDAQ: SNPS).